The Ultimate Arms Workout

If you want muscular, strong, and defined arms that you can be proud of, then you want to do these arm exercises and workouts. If you’re like most guys–and… I’m not going to lie… like me–you got into weightlifting to build big arms and a big chest. And if you’re a girl, toned, defined arms were probably high on your list as well. Well, I know where you’re coming from.

I remember when I first watched The Predator and… …yeah, that’s pretty awesome. Nothing inspires flattering looks and comments from strangers faster than muscular arms and well-developed pecs. A physique just isn’t complete without full, round, “3-dimensional” arms.

Well, in this article we’re going to talk all about what it takes to build biceps, triceps, and forearms that make eyeballs pop. Let’s start with the anatomy of arm and learn what needs to happen to get the look we want and then move on to the arm exercises and workouts that will get us there.

The Anatomy of the Arm Muscles

When most people think of arm muscles, they think of the biceps.

Big biceps = big arms…right?

Not necessarily.

Ironically, the biceps contribute substantially less to overall arm size than the triceps, which are a much larger muscle group.

You can see this clearly in a shot like this (might as well stick with the Arnie worship?)

Thus, one of the little-known “secrets” to building big arms is building big triceps.

I’m getting ahead of myself though, so let’s rewind and look at each of the arm muscles in detail.

The Biceps in Detail

The biceps (or, formally, biceps brachii) is a two-headed muscle that looks like this:

Another muscle you need to know about is the biceps brachialis, which lies beneath the biceps brachii and assists it in flexing at the elbow.

Here’s how it looks:

While this muscle isn’t nearly as prominent as the biceps brachii, it plays an important role in the overall appearance of your arms.

When well developed, the brachialis looks like a “knot” in between the biceps brachii and triceps, and it noticeably impacts the overall aesthetics of the arms.

First, it cleanly separates the biceps and triceps when flexed, which better showcases each.

Second, it pushes the biceps brachii up, giving you a better “peak” when flexing.

Here’s a picture of me that I think illustrates my point:

So, when we get to the exercises and workouts portion of this article, we will be including some work to target the brachialis.

The Triceps in Detail

The next muscle group to talk about is the triceps, or triceps brachii, which has three heads:

As you can see, the three heads combine to form the distinctive “horseshoe” that can become quite pronounced, when properly developed.

Here’s another shot of me showing where I’m at with my triceps:

As I mentioned earlier, the biceps are given far too much focus in most people’s arm workouts.

Small triceps mean small, disproportionate arms, regardless of the size of the biceps.

The Forearms in Detail

Last but not least are the forearms, which are comprised of several smaller muscles:

Forearms are like the calves of the arms.

They aren’t the immediate focus, but if they’re underdeveloped, it’s sorely obvious. If they’re well developed, however, it greatly enhances the whole appearance of the limbs.

Well, I’ve been practicing what I preach in this article for several years now and my forearms have made quite a bit of progress, which I think you can see nicely here:

Alright then. Those are the muscles we want to develop and why.

Let’s now discuss how to best do it, starting with the fundamentals of proper arm training.

The Simple Science of Effective Arms Training

There are a lot of theories out there about how to best train arms.

Some people say you have to focus on high-rep training and really feel the burn.

Others say the key is training them several times per week.

Others still say you don’t have to directly train them at all and should focus on major compound movements instead.

Well, I’ve tried all the above and more, and I’ve worked with thousands of people, and what I’ve found is a combination of the above seems to work best.

That is, building big arms requires that you perform heavy compound lifts and directly train your major arm muscles with both low- and high-rep training. And,like with all major muscle groups, you have to emphasize heavy weightlifting to best stimulate muscle growth.

Exercise choice is also a very important part of proper arm training because some exercises are better for progressively overloading the muscles than others.

For example, the standing barbell curl is an all-around more effective biceps exercise than the cable curl.

When your training emphasizes heavy weights (80 to 85%+ of 1RM), optimal volume seems to be about 60 to 70 reps performed every 5 to 7 days.

This not only applies to the biceps and triceps but to every other major muscle group as well.

Now, I would modify this slightly in the case of arms training because the biceps and triceps are heavily involved in your pressing and pulling.

So if you’re also doing 60 to 70 heavy reps for both back and chest every week (and you should be), you probably want to do a bit less direct work on your bis and tris. I’ve found that 30 to 40 reps per week is plenty.

Alright, now that we have basic training theory under our belts, let’s look at the best arms exercises for building muscle and strength.

The Best Arm Exercises

We’ll start with the biceps and then move to triceps and forearms.

The Best Biceps Exercises

Like with most muscle groups, there are scores of biceps exercises you can choose from but only a small handful are really necessary.

Just because you can do twenty varieties of curls doesn’t mean you need to. The following are the most effective:

1. Barbell Curl

The barbell curl has been a bodybuilding staple for over a century now for good reason: it’s one of the best all-around biceps builders you can do.

2. E-Z Bar Biceps Curl

I will switch to the E-Z Bar variant from time to time to give my wrists and elbows a break from the stress placed on them by the barbell curl.

3. Alternating Dumbbell Curl

Like the barbell curl, this is a time-proven exercise that builds bigger biceps.

4. Hammer Dumbbell Curl

The hammer curl is particularly useful for building up the biceps brachialis (the smaller muscle that helps give your biceps a visual boost).

5. Chin-Up

The chin-up is a great “functional” movement that targets the biceps.

You can add weight with a dip belt or weighted vest as you get stronger, which ensures you can keep progressively overloading your muscles.

The Best Triceps Exercises

Like the biceps, the sheer number of potential triceps exercises you can do can be overwhelming.

Here’s what you need to focus on to really bring out your horseshoes:

1. Close-Grip Bench Press

If I were to do just one triceps exercise, it would probably be the close-grip bench press.

It’s a compound movement that allows you to safely push heavy weight and it also gives a little boost to your chest development.

NOTE

When doing a close-grip bench press, your grip should be slightly narrower than shoulder-width and no closer.

You’ll see many guys place their hands just a few inches apart, and this is a bad idea—it puts the shoulders and wrists in a weakened, compromised position.

2. Dumbbell Overhead Triceps Press

This is one of my favorite triceps exercises because it enables you to safely press heavy weight and overload the triceps.

3. Lying Triceps Press

The lying triceps press involves a motion similar to the overhead dumbbell press and it’s great for developing the triceps.

4. Triceps Pushdown

This is the most common triceps exercise that people do and, surprisingly, it’s quite good.

That said, I like to save it for later in my workouts after I’ve done heavier work on the other exercises given in this list.

I also like the V-bar and straight bar attachments more than the rope.

5. Dip

There are two types of dips you can do: the bench and upright dip. Both are good for training the triceps and benefit the chest and shoulders as well.

Here’s the bench dip:

Forearm Training

I’ll often get asked what I do for my forearms, and people are surprised to learn that I do no direct forearm training. All development has been a result of heavy back, chest, and arm training.

I’m not a fan of directly training forearms for two reasons:

It can lead to elbow tightness and pain, which hinders your triceps training.

It’s just not necessary if you’re sticking to heavy, compound lifting for your back, chest, and arms.

Remember–Progression is the Key to Muscle Growth

That’s it for the best arm exercises.

The key, however, isn’t just doing the exercises–it’s progressing on them. That is, increasing the amount of weight you can move over time.

If you don’t get stronger, you won’t get bigger.

But if you do work on building your strength on these exercises, and you eat enough food to grow, your arms will respond.

A good arms workout trains both the biceps (and both the biceps brachii and brachialis) and triceps (each of the heads) and, indirectly, the forearms, and focuses on heavy weights.

Just like any other muscle group, arms can benefit from higher-rep work, but you have to emphasize heavy weightlifting if you want them to continue to grow over time.

You can learn more about programming workouts in my books Bigger Leaner Stronger and Thinner Leaner Stronger, but I want to give you a simple arms workout that you can do for the next 8 weeks to see how my advice works for you.

What I want you to do over the next 8 weeks is perform the following arms workout once every 5 – 7 days:

Barbell Curl

Warm up and 3 sets of 4 – 6 reps

Close-Grip Bench Press

Warm up and 3 sets of 4 – 6 reps

Dumbbell Hammer Curl

3 sets of 4 – 6 reps

Dips

3 sets of 4 – 6 reps

Optional

Dumbbell Curl

2 sets of 6 – 8 reps

Optional

Dumbbell Overhead Triceps Press

2 sets of 6 – 8 reps

That’s it–just 16 to 20 heavy sets for your entire workout.

Don’t superset these exercise. Instead, do this:

Biceps exercise

Rest 60 seconds

Triceps exercise

Rest 60 seconds

Repeat

This will give your muscles enough time to fully recoup their strength so you can give maximum effort each set.

Once you hit the top of your rep range for one set, you move up in weight.

For instance, if you get 6 reps on your first set of barbell curls, you add 5 pounds to each side of the bar for your next set and work with that weight until you can curl it for 6 reps, and so forth.

What About Supplements?

I saved this for last because, quite frankly, it’s far less important than proper diet and training.

You see, supplements don’t build great physiques–dedication to proper training and nutrition does.

Unfortunately, the workout supplement industry is plagued by pseudoscience, ridiculous hype, misleading advertising and endorsements, products full of junk ingredients, underdosing key ingredients, and many other shenanigans.

While workout supplements don’t play a vital role in building muscle and losing fat, and many are a complete waste of money…the right ones can help.

The truth of the matter is there are safe, natural substances that have been scientifically proven to deliver benefits such as increased strength, muscle endurance and growth, fat loss, and more.

As a part of my work, it’s been my job to know what these substances are, and find products with them that I can use myself and recommend to others.

Finding high-quality, effective, and fairly priced products has always been a struggle, though.

That’s why I took matters into my own hands and decided to create my own supplements. And not just another line of “me too” supplements–the exact formulations I myself have always wanted and wished others would create.

WHO WE ARE

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